Air polishing powders are typically based either on glycine or bicarbonate or carbonate. The solely intention of these powders is professional tooth cleaning.
Bicarbonate or carbonate based powders are, however, known to be quite abrasive for teeth and dental materials which limits their use in professional tooth cleaning.
To improve the use of air polishing, a powder, based on glycine, had been developed by 3M ESPE which is available on market as Clinpro™ Prophy Powder. Clinpro™ Prophy Powder can be used supra-gingivally (i.e. above the gum line) as well as sub-gingivally (i.e. below the gum line). In particular the latter is very unique because sub-gingival air polishing is absolutely contraindicated for abrasive powders.
US 2011/0117523 (Cook et al.) describes a dental composition comprising an air abrasive agent comprising a polyalkenoate acid and a propellant.
US 2010/029757 (Donnet et al.) relates to a powder for powder jet cleaning with a powder jet device, wherein the powder contains an alditol.
US 2011/0281238 (Cook et al.) refers to a method of removing an adhesion resin from a dental tooth comprising the step of contacting the dental tooth with a bioactive glass using an air abrasion system.
US 2003/0008263 (Cook et al.) relates to the use of a bioactive glass in the manufacture of an air abrasive agent for use in the treatment of dental hard tissue and pulpal disorders. Bioactive glass, however, seems to be quite damaging to sound dentin. Tests revealed an abrasion of more than about 1 mm3, which is considered as too high.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,485,304 (Beerstecher et al.) describes a dental abrasive blasting or jet apparatus comprising a powder reservoir for storing a dental powder, a separate fluid receptacle, a branch line and a suction pump. The powder may contain aluminium oxide or dolomite.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,126,444 (Horiguchi et al.) relates to a plaque remover injected with water and compressed air comprising an abradant for removing dental plaque, etc. wherein the abradant comprises primarily granular polysaccharide.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,648,644 (Flemmig et al.) relates to the use of fine powders or powder mixtures for the preparation of an agent for powder-jet cleansing of dental root surfaces, wherein the powders or powder mixtures provide a density of no more than 2 g/cm3 and or a mean particle size of no more than 45 μm.
However, there is still room for improvement especially with regard to the requirements to be fulfilled with respect to modern dental materials.
Patients and dentists nowadays have an increasing demand for compositions which are effective in cleaning the tooth surface and are essentially non-damaging to said surface.
Thus, there is still a need for an improved composition, which can be used as a tooth cleaning composition.